Ben Welsher | Writings

The bag feels light, almost weightless as I bustle through the station en route to missing my train. I'll miss my train because I can no longer control the whirlwind, because the tiger I'm riding cannot change its stripes. Missing this train took a minute of ill-preparedness which took a day of muddled thinking which has taken weeks of bi-directional candle-burning. And I won't miss this train because, for now, the tiger loves me and wants me to be happy. It carries me to the ticket barrier and we bound through. It smiles its Cheshire Cat smile at the staff who whisk me past the queue. It settles me in my seat with such silken grace as to make all this seem so easy, so inevitable that a greater romantic than I (and that is no mean feat) would cry 'destiny!' But the tiger just smiles. And if I've manifested away the rough edges of my chosen course and sworn there are no rocks below the lovely smoothness of this water then I have also pressed my wet finger to th...

Day 97 - Hoài Tân I'm somewhere but I'm not sure where. In a geographical sense I'm by the beach in Vietnam. In a town that may or may not be called Hoài Tân. It's the place nearby whose name remains when you zoom out of Google Maps. In a numerical sense I'm 1000km into a 2000km journey so, according to Pythagoras, halfway. In a specific sense I'm in a bar that is so empty of other people that my thoughts seem to echo even though the place has no walls. The only sound is the fan cooling me and the waves hitting the beach. I cough and it sounds like a foghorn. The staff mill about in the background but they have no English and I am deeply alone. I find the situation strange rather than unpleasant, though I feel bound to search my feelings. In a personal sense I find myself unsure if I'm the person I was, the person that pursued an unfulfilling life to breaking point. I suspect not but it is hard to judge when you're inside the fishbowl. Rory would insis...

Day 95 - Hội An Umbrella eh? Would you like an umbrella sir? Eh Eh? Cometh the rains in central Vietnam (and they do cometh) cometh the men with the means to keep you dry. My path had crossed Rory's again and we were sat outside a bar in Hội An as rain gently pattered the glistening streets. We took it in turns to politely decline the repeated offer from the salesmen who appeared in their multitudes after the first drop hit the ground. There was however no need for their flimsy, mass-produced protection from the elements. We *were* the elements. Toughened and smoothed by hills and valleys and time. Two pebbles in the stream. I'd got to Hội An the night before and realising that Rory was in town had agreed to join him on an organised pub crawl. It was like a form of speed-dating without the prospect of a date at the end of it. Most conversations with the other 'crawlers lasted only a few minutes and covered the basics of name, nationality, where you'd been and where you...

Day 95 - Huè My similarities to a Mandalorian begin and end with the wearing of a helmet. While the life of an interstellar bounty hunter is undoubtedly exciting this journey is also imbued with a certain freewheeling self-determination. I just hope I don't fall into a sarlacc pit. And for the first time in a couple of days I don't feel like I will. A night's sleep unruffled by (excessive) booze has led to a morning free from hangover and riding that is fun again. My mood is reflected in the landscape as the road bends to skirt the South China Sea. It becomes free of traffic and to my right is countryside. To my left begins to stretch mile after mile of empty beaches broken only by colourful fishing boats pulled up onto the sand. The road is good and I can safely take my eyes off it long enough to be lulled by surroundings that finally reflect those scenes I conjured in my mind before I started the ride. We are fed so many idealised images of travel, inaccurate at best and...

Day 93 - Dong Hoi Is hair of the dog a universal concept? (certain stricter Muslim countries aside). If so there may be something in it. Nevertheless I declined the café owner's kind offer of a beer and a toke on his enormous pipe (arf) and settled for a black coffee instead. A coffee served neither hot nor cold and the fact that the right word for this temperature escapes me shows the effects of my escapades over the past two nights. It was but a bitter drop in the black ocean of my fatigue. Anticipating an even worse day than yesterday I wearily swung my leg over the bike. After a few kilometres of riding that felt like nails on a chalkboard, if my brain was the chalkboard and the nails were nails, I pulled over to the side of the road. There was only one thing for it, I needed the help of a patron saint. Now you'd think that Saint Christopher would be the obvious choice, his specialism being travellers and all. But I felt a bit hypocritical calling on the help of a holy man...

Day 92 - Vinh Even in the most nihilistic recesses of a life lived under a 'light-touch' regulation of desire I struggle to justify the decision to ride with a steepling hangover. Not only because it increases the likelihood of death but also because it makes the time leading up to that death also feel like death. Not for me the rat-a-tat of Bonnie and Clyde's defiant end nor the Thelma and Louise weightlessness of being beyond reach. I haven't named the bike so I can't even meet my surely imminent demise was a plus one. Not that the bike would die of course, just look at the speedo. They'd pick it up, the police perhaps if they could spare a second from grift but more likely the locals, and it would be dusted off and back on the road in a day or two. Me they'd sluice into the gutter like they were shopkeepers cleaning their shopfronts, which they could be. To die on day two of this epic journey would make it look like a foolish idea and I can't have pe...